Blow-up dolls playing with a vibrator and maggots devouring flesh are among the shock images awaiting visitors to this year's Turner Prize exhibition.

The two works -- by brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman -- go on public display today at the august Tate Britain museum with a warning to minors about their explicit nature.

Another contender for Britain's best-known arts prize, Grayson Perry, a cross-dressing potter, also features sex acts, genitals and death -- depicted by way of ceramic vases.

The annual Turner exhibition almost always sends chins wagging in the British art world, and fevered debate can be expected in the run-up to the December 7 announcement of this year's winner.

The Chapmans' first entry, a reworking of a piece they did nine years ago, is titled "Sex," and shows figures being picked off by maggots, snails, spiders and rats.

It is accompanied by "Death", which depicts what seems to be two blow-up dolls using a vibrator on an inflatable bed. In fact, it's a bronze cast sculpture, realistically painted.

"The Chapman brothers deliberately set out to make work that provokes a strong reaction," said Turner curator Katherine Stout.

"Here they're dealing with things that have been a common thread in their art, sex and death. When you see the sculptures they do invite a strong reaction -- but with 'Death' it's also quite funny. It's quite absurd."

Perry's ceramics deal with such sensitive issues as child abuse.

They include "A Tradition of Bitterness," which shows images of two suburban homes alongside the silhouetted figure of a man who has hanged himself and another with an erection who is being beaten by a woman.

Several of his pots include figures of young girls in doll-like dresses.

Perry himself often wears such outfits when he dresses as his alter-ego, Claire. One of his elaborately embroidered garments, titled "Coming Out Dress," is on display.

Also on this year's Turner shortlist is Willie Doherty and his video work "Re-Run" in which a man is seen running across a bridge from two angles and the images are projected onto two facing screens.

The fourth contestant, Anya Gallacio, has created a number of exhibits which will rot over the duration of the exhibition, which lasts until January 18.

She has arranged fresh apples over a bronze cast of a tree in "Because Nothing Has Changed", and left 1,600 gerbera flowers behind glass screens to wilt over time.